My wonderful, beautiful little chihuahua Princess died this morning...

She lived with me in Arizona, Washington, California, and even New York. She'd been by my side endlessly these last many years... I used to take her doordashing with me last year in NY, we'd spend all day together with her in the backseat of my car in her little bed, I'd talk to her, I'd sing to her, I'd share my food and water with her...

Everyone who met her, loved her. She was uncharacteristically, unbelievably sweet considering she was a chihuahua.

She was the most wonderful little animal I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.

...

Rest in peace, my beautiful baby dog.

Welp... nine months later and my life in New York did not pan out. I drove back across the US and returned to where I was in Arizona, just got back in a few nights ago. Thanks to everyone who helped me out with the gofundme nine months ago, and to everyone else who helped me out during the last night months.

Not sure what the next step of my life is going to be...

At least I got to see snow.

Yesterday morning, a dear friend of mine, known by many as Reactive Portal on Secondlife, or Repo for short, passed away.

I loved you my friend, and you will be missed by many. You were one of the kindest souls I ever met. In fact, in a journal I wrote here 3 years ago "Escape from the crazy house", Repo was the friend with whom I moved in with for those two months.

Goodbye my friend, and fuck cancer.

Operation Exodus was a success, I've been in NY and have been adjusting to the new life. Mental health is way up, and depression is way down, dare I even say, non-existent.

2450 miles with of driving across the US!!!

https://gofund.me/f4dcfc12

I've reached my final breaking point and i'm at my wit's end beyond my wit's end. I need out of my current living situation. I am just trying to scrounge up enough money to be able to move myself across the country. There is a room, and friends, waiting for me at my destination... that is all...

There's less than an hour and a half of this god awful, horrible, terrible, no good, very bad WRETCHED year left at the time of this writing, here in Arizona.

This has, without a doubt, been the single worst, most stressful year of my life, bar none. I have not cried so much in a given year probably since I was a child. I have never been through such constant and overwhelming depression. I've never been so stressed out for such a long period of time.

===

I had a dream, some weeks ago now, about my mother. It reached a point where I remembered that she was gone, that she is dead, and came to the realization that I was dreaming. I don't lucid dream often, but in this one... I demanded a hug from her, even knowing it was a dream, and clung to her before I broke down crying. This dream fucked me up for days, maybe even a week. So much crying. So much depression.

===

But I need to look to the future, not dwell on the past. I'm more than ready to get back to trying to pick myself up and move on with the next steps of my life.

===

One of my goals for 2021 is to put out more posts regarding my fictional world. I've spent a lot of time this year putting work into this world, and I'd like to put together some visual/infographic type things to post, and also commission more art to help explore my world. So stay tuned for that...

===

I hope everyone has a better 2021.

P.S. My god do I look forward to saying goodbye to the giant orange shitstain of subhuman trash in the whitehouse.

This past month has seen:

Running dangerously low on money.
The AC going out -again- and leaving us miserable and too hot to even sleep for days.
A roach infestation in my room that I let fester, due to not keeping up on cleaning food crumbs and such, due to depression and lack of will brought on by everything else.
The death of someone who, while I wasn't that close to personally, was one of the founders of a community I've hung around with for over 4 years now. Rest in piece, Lain of LEWD.
The death of my Grandmother, whom while I wasn't that close with, still saddens me.
+ Death of mother + grandmother within 2 months of each other makes me worry about my father.
The death of our dearest dog, Lily.
+ She was a 9-ish year old chihuahua or chihuahua mix, deer-headed.
+ She never showed any indication of being unhealthy, she had a young appearance, she was energetic, at a healthy weight, nothing was wrong with her.
+ She just started seizing randomly and wouldn't stop.
+ Couldn't do anything to save her. In the course of 15 minutes she was dead, and is now two feet underground in the back of our backyard.
+ She was a good dog and didn't fucking deserve this.
Coping with everything by drinking a lot. I know, not the best solution, I'm sorry, I'm only human.

All that being said... this last month hasn't actually been all bad:

My unemployment claims finally went through, which means I have at least some kind of income again. This was a huge boost to my mental wellbeing, and led to...
Feeling like I broke through the barrier of depression for the first time in... a while... which led to...
Dealing with the roach infestation. Meticulously going through and cleaning out every bit of everything in the corner of the room they had infested, and murdering the fuck out of them little devils lol
We figured out the root cause of the AC/electrical failures.

=====

I worry thinking about what else this year has in store.

The last 2-3 months of my life, basically ever since I returned from California, have been a shit show of nonstop stress and garbage.

I'm constantly in this state of "trying to recover" from the last shitty thing that happened, but I can never get there because like clockwork, every week or two, a new shitty thing happens to bring me back down all over again. I've been trying to even get back to a neutral level of mental health and try to do something productive or creative, but it just keeps not happening.

Having to move back to my parents' place, again, after all the drama that happened before.
Ongoing dental issues that took months to resolves, including two tooth crowns that needed to be replaced. I barely had enough money to cover one, I absolutely could NOT cover a second one. The day I found out the 2nd one needed to be replaced, and how much it would cost, I cried as soon as I got back to my car, harder than I ever have in my adult life...
(Fortunately, an old friend of mine was willing and able to cover the cost of that crown, so that ended up being not-so-bad)
Finally getting a new phone and new phone service for the first time in a long time, with unlimited data and the ability to tether, which free'd me from the piss poor laggy satellite internet we have here at the house, only for this same phone service to stop working for nearly a week... sounds like not that big a deal in retrospect, but it fucking sucked to be forced back to the shit show of internet that is satellite.
Random failures of the air conditioning in this part of the house, during the summer/pre-summer months, in Arizona.
Random failures of half the electrical outlets in my room, had to bust out a bunch of extension cables and have them running across my room.
A car with a completely dead AC, electrical problems, a cracked motor mount, etc...
No job, my only real income being the trickle I get from my Secondlife store.
The general state of the world, or I guess more so the United States. A shitty response to the pandemic, police brutality in the limelight, disheartening videos from the protests, etc

And then to top it all off... my mother died from a fucking brain aneurysm. On the 4th of July.
And that same day, my older brother responded to it by getting shitfaced drunk beyond measure and becoming belligerent, cycling between saying he wanted to kill everyone, shouting things at god, crying and saying he didn't mean it, and crying and saying he just wanted his mom to be okay. I spent over an hour wrangling him, trying to stop him from falling down and hurting himself, or from punching/hitting anything. Then he punched a glass light fixture, our father heard the noise in came in and started yelling at him, then me, my younger brother, and like 3 of my female cousins all had to stop a fight from breaking out. By the end of it, his girlfriend was crying, one of my cousins was crying, and maybe even a second cousin was crying.

Beyond that, there was some more drama a week or two later, but thankfully I was asleep for that one. Screaming and yelling and stuff during the night, but it happened in the main part of the house, away from where my room is, so I remain undisturbed by it.

Beyond -that-, the AC for this part of the house has died completely. We're projected to reach a high of 113F today, and 116F the next two days. Inside of my room it's been getting above 95F during the hottest parts of the day. It's been fuckin' miserable. I'm doing what I can to keep cool, but it's still pretty fuckin' miserable :L

And that's about it. The disaster that my life has become. I miss my fucking apartment, I miss my entire life before this year, I miss living alone, I miss being independent and not having to live at my parents' place... or I guess it's just my father's place now... at the ripe old age of 33.
Oh and this fucking pandemic isn't helping anything, either, but that goes without saying.

I feel like my normal positivity has been eroded away this past year, especially these past few months. I'm basically just constantly waiting for the next shitty thing to happen in life, because shitty things just keep happening.

===

Alright, that's enough complaining for now. Wish me luck in whatever stupid shit happens next =.=

P.S. I don't blame my older brother at all for the way he acted that day, his mother just died, and he was closer to her than I was. I still wish he -hadn't- behaved that way, but I also forgive him completely.

Life Update:

My mother has had an aneurysm, and they have done all they can. It's over, she's not going to make it, she's back in the intensive care unit and is being made comfortable until she passes.

This year sucks.

It's actually been about 2 and a half weeks now. I did end up having to move back, and as of 20 May 2020, I've been once again living at the crazy house!

It's been calm so far, the energy here seems a bit different than before, people are keeping to themselves more.

/shrug

P.S. #BlackLivesMatter

Welp, after further discussion, we have decided afterall to stick it out for another month. So now we're unpacking our stuff and I'm not heading back to the crazy house just yet. @.@

No idea if this will change again soon, everything is up in the air.

Well...

Looks like we're both packing our stuff and are out of here within days. Back to the crazy house it is @.@

Hopefully it's less crazy this time around.

Also my home state of Arizona just issued a stay-at-home order.

Eee.

As it stands, and without going into too much detail, due to the Covid-19 pandemic tanking the stock market, this puts me and the person I am living with in the awkward situation of possibly having to vacate the house within a couple of months.

If that were to happen, and it California were to close its borders in that time... well, let's just say there's a nonzero chance I could end up trapped and homeless in California.
Been searching around for some kind of remote work-from-home job, but the prospects are not promising....

It might come down to me having to... return to the crazy house. That being said, I've received word that since my cousin moved out from there, that it's been the difference between night and day, that things have been infinitely calmer. I've also heard that my younger brother still hasn't drank since that incident that morning...

So basically everything is up in the air right now and I don't know what the coming days, weeks, and months will bring.

The last two weeks have been... something. Tiring. Exhausting. Frustrating.

Here are the characters of this story, names have been changed to protect the not so innocent:

Me - 33 year old male, living at my parents' house once again.
Younger brother - 28, has a drinking problem. And a 5 year old niece.
Niece - She's 5.
Mother - 60+, I don't even know where to begin.
Cousin - 38, trouble follows her.
Lincoln - Cousin's abusive, typical asshole macho hispanic dude of a boyfriend. Crazy motherfucker.

===

Monday - 2 March 2020

Brother had been up all night drinking, as well as having done some cocaine with his friend at some point during the night or the day before. Failed to get his daughter (my niece) ready for school. This sparked an argument between him and mother. His drunk ass flew off the handle, he started raging. I was nearly asleep, about to take a nap when I was startled back awake by a loud door slam. I hoped it wasn't too serious and tried to go back to sleep. Soon enough younger brother and older brother are arguing, yelling at each other right outside my door. More door slams.

I decide I better go out there and try to keep the peace, try to make sure nobody did anything stupid. I go out to the main part of the house, and hear mother sobbing, wailing even. I head up the stairs to her room, but then the front door opens and slams shut, it's younger brother coming in. I yell at him to stop slamming doors and shit, and he yells back "WHAT YOU WANNA GO?" and rushes up the stairs to try and start a fight with me. It fizzles out when he actually reaches me (with my mother, my cousin, and my other, also female, cousin all yelling at him/us to stop), I calm him down and tell him he really does need to settle down.

As we're heading back down the stairs, mother informs me that younger brother crushed her cowboy hat during the argument, she's very upset about it. I'm upset about it, I have a pretty big problem with people destroying other people's property out of malice.

A short while later, I drive my younger brother and his friend back to the friends' place. I was of course, happy to get him out of the house. An internet friend of mine had previously offered to let me move in with him in California (I was in Arizona), I hit him up and asked if he was serious about that, as at this point I wanted to get the hell away from this house and this family.

===

Friday - 13 March 2020

A week and a half had passed since the incident with my brother. He'd since apologized to me, apologized to everyone in the house, claimed he wasn't going to drink anymore, and things had been calm. I was thinking maybe I wouldn't move after all, or at the very least, wait until I could find a job and build up some money before I went running off to another state.

Around mid day, Cousin knocks on my door and asks if I can haul a bunch of her stuff to her friends' place. I ask why, she says my mother is flipping out and wants her out of the house immediately. I say fine, and go out to help her hurriedly pack her stuff. She's very paranoid about Lincoln showing up. Every car that comes down our driveway nearly sends her into a panic. She tells me about what happened much earlier that day/morning.

At around 4am, her abusive boyfriend Lincoln had followed her back to the house in his truck, and when she pulled her car into the driveway, he hit her car with his truck, on purpose. Cousin freaked out and whipped the car around through the front yard, almost onto the porch. Lincoln got out of his car and pounded on her windshield. The commotion woke people up (not me, I was dead asleep, my room is far from the front of the house). The cops were soon called and Lincoln left.

The cops were called. Mother had insisted that cousin (who had been on the wrong side of the law most of her life, been in and out of prison, jail, etc.), that she -had- to be the one to call the cops. Father, thinking that it really didn't matter who called the cops, called them himself, despite mother's insisting that it -had- to be cousin.

This really, -really- set my mother off. This was just the biggest deal in the world to her, for some reason. This is why she was kicking cousin out. This is why we were packing stuff into my car.

Mother's sanity and composure slipped more and more as the next couple hours went by. She would not stop yelling, screaming at my father and cousin. At everyone. She was just trying to pick verbal fights with everyone at this point, saying anything she could think of to try and start arguments. All sorts of mean, ugly things. It got to the point where she was throwing shit down from the top of the stairs, onto the hard wood entryway floor. A laptop, a wireless keyboard, makeup bottles, all sorts of shit. Father has come to the conclusion, some time ago, that mother is mentally ill, and he just... lets her do these things. I went up the stairs and asked her to stop throwing things.

She stopped, but then went into her room and I hear things being thrown, knocked over, broken, it sounded like she was beating on the walls. She continued to come back out of her room to yell at people, more and more. At some point she insinuates that my cousin and my father have a thing for each other. This sets my cousin off who screams "what the FUCK?!", father gets up and comes over to yell at mother a bit, and at some point all three of them were yelling/screaming all over each other all at once. I'm standing at the top of the stairway, mostly because I want to keep mother physically separated from everyone else. It's bad enough that she's been screaming at everyone for an hour straight and has been throwing and breaking shit, the last thing I wanted was for her to start a physical confrontation with anyone.

At this moment, I think I found a newfound respect for people who grew up in abusive households with lots of yelling. I'm a 33 year old man who's not really had to deal with this kind of thing that much, and this was stressing me the hell out.

We finally get cousin's stuff packed and we get her the hell out of there. Pretty sure that last thing I heard before I went out the front door was mother screaming about how she hates everyone, hates herself, and wants to kill herself.

We get to my cousin's friend's trailer and unload all her stuff. I nearly got bit by a pit bull. Usually animals like me, but I dunno, perhaps he sensed the utter tension and stress and how high strung both me and my cousin were.

I say goodbye to my cousin, I don't know when I will see her again, as at this point I am moving out of this crazy house as soon as humanly possible.

===

I get back home, things are relatively quiet. I go back into my room and before I get a chance to do much, the power goes out for a couple of minutes. After the power came back on, I decide to go out to the main part of the house, just... to continue to keep the peace if need be. Turns out my mother is the one who went out and shut the power off, because she's still so angry at father, she doesn't want him doing anything. Doesn't want him watching TV, using his computer, doesn't want him doing -anything-. He's ignoring her, so she shut off the power. Father goes out and turns the power back on. Mother goes out and turns it back off. Back on, back off, on again, off again.

At this point I am just utterly beside myself. Is this real life? Are these real people actually acting like this? Are these my own parents doing this?

Mother finally stops shutting the power off and goes back into her room upstairs. A few minutes later, she comes back down and starts pulling the ethernet cables out of the router. I just sigh... and then she grabs the router's power cord and swings, slams it against the railing of the stair way and breaks it. The plastic side panel popped off and flew right over my niece's head, nearly hitting her. Everyone gets on her case and tells her she needs to stop this shit immediately, that she cannot be putting niece in danger, etc.

I am so unbelievably beside myself at this point. Maybe I should have been more proactive and aggressive in stopping her ridiculous behavior. It's just... I did not wake up that morning expecting to possibly be facing a physical confrontation with my 60+ year old grandma of a mother. It's also... not my house. Not my house, not my rules. And the fact that my father was just letting mother "get away" with all this ridiculous behavior, well it sent mixed messages to me. I wasn't really sure what to do.

I went back to my room and started packing, and let my friend know that I was leaving either tomorrow, or the next day.

P.S. Midway through the evening, I grabbed my smallest kitchen knife and had it in my pocket. With how crazy everyone was being, and with Lincoln unaccounted for, I figured there might be a possibility of me finding myself in a physical confrontation. I decided I'd rather have the knife and not need it, than need it and not have it.

===

Saturday - 14 March 2020

I continue to pack my stuff and begin loading it into my car. While carrying a box out, mother calls down from the top of the stairs to me "You seriously can't handle a little family drama?". I told her not to give me that attitude, and that after yesterday, I am -out- of here. We had a bit more back and forth, and at that point I decide I am not waiting another day, I am leaving as soon as I finish packing my shit.

So I packed, said my goodbyes (to my brothers, niece, and cousin, not to either of my parents), and got the hell out of there.

Drove from Laveen, Arizona, to Indio, California, with my small dog in tow, and settled in for the night.

===

Sunday - 15 March 2020

I continue on my journey to San Francisco. An hour or two after beginning this part of my journey, some rain hits. The windshield wipers on my car are in bad shape, nearly falling off, they do a minimal job at helping visibility when it's raining. I decide to get off the highway and wait out the rain. Unfortunately I couldn't... find any good spots to park the car. I end up driving through a downtown area. I haaate driving in downtown areas. In fact I have never particularly enjoyed driving at all, but having to drive in crowded downtown areas where I can't even stop to take a moment and think, was just... incredibly frustrating, nerve wracking, almost panic-inducing.

I finally found a parking lot around some stores and got my bearings, but the incident left me very high strung and stressed for hours afterwards. Some hours later, at a rest stop, I found that one of the straps holding down my car-top-carrier had torn nearly halfway. I moved the strap so the torn part wasn't being rubbed/pulled against by a metal bit on the car top carrier, but I was still very nervous about this. So my stress levels remained very high. I stopped at another gas station to see if they had any straps I could buy to replace the failing one, but didn't find anything. Finally, I decided to move the strap more, so that the torn part was inside of the car. This way, not only could I keep an eye on it which did a great deal to put me at ease, but it was also safe inside the car, not being subjected to 65mph winds.

Hours and hours and hours of driving later, I finally, finally got to my friend's place, and I've been settling in and getting situated for the past two days or so.

===

It took two days and 750 miles of driving, but I escaped the crazy house.

Just an update since my last journal...

I've now had some weeks to settle in at my parents' place, and... to be honest, it's not nearly as horrible as I'd been dreading.
It's taking some adjusting on my part, I spent the last six years living alone, with no pets, no roommates, no significant other, etc, just me, myself, and I. And that's the ways I likes it!

But now I'm surrounded by people, family members, children, animals, etc. There's 9 chihuahuas living here! And a horse! And a turtle!

It's admittedly probably good for my mental health to not be spending so much time physically alone, even though I enjoy it. And it is absolutely good for my mental health to be around my most favorite small dog in the world once again. Prior to my move, I hadn't visited this house or my family in over two years, which includes the small dog. She's been spending a lot of time in my room, and I missed her and I love her!

...

Anyways, there was a job I was trying to get before I had to move, and only now, after the move, did I get the job. So I'm starting a new, full time job tomorrow. So that's neat. :L

One one hand... I hate working full time, hate how much time it takes away from me every day, every week, and wish I could stay home and work on my creative shit and, y'know, just enjoy life without having to devote so much time to some employer.
On the other hand... man do I look forward to having money again!

Five days of nonstop moving, up and down 1.5 flights of stairs over 9000 times, driving 20 miles back and forth between my apartment and my parents' house, unloading shit, driving back, packing more shit, more stairs aaa

My right lower leg is KILLING ME, it's so bad I've been hobbling around like a 90 year old man.

BUT... we did it, with the help of some immediate family members, we got all my shit, everything's here, and the room I'm staying in is larger than some studio apartments.

I really wasn't ready to leave that apartment... I lived there for six years, it was my home, I loved being there... but the time has come, and now here I am. Not sure what the next step in my life is going to be...

At least now I don't have a $900 rent bill looming every month.

I lost my job in October and haven't been able to find a replacement. I'm no longer able to make ends meet and I'm having to move back to my parents' place at the ripe old age of 33.

I tried my hand at some crappy call center as a stopgap solution, but I only lasted a grand total of one call. I've been trying and trying, applying and applying, hitting up staffing agencies, etc. I've been borrowing money from friends, which is something I really, really dislike doing or even asking, but I've been desperate. I've been selling things, but I only have so much stuff to sell.

In the end, it's just not enough, I don't have enough money, rent is too high. I'm not able to make it.
I've been massively stressed out for months and months now, it's gotten to the point where I've been crying every day.

I'm not happy about this, I'm going to be stuck on satellite internet over there... but at least the boot will be off my throat for paying bills for a while. Or at least lessened.

I don't know where my life is going to go from here.

I hate working full time.